Have We Been Brainwashed?
by: Brendan Magee
We have seen over time where people have been brainwashed into committing ungodly acts. The Nazis indoctrinated Germany into believing it was perfectly ok to kill Jews by the millions. ISIS has their soldiers at total peace in cutting off the heads of people who don't believe in their brand of Islam. People have been persuaded into drinking Koolade laced with poison that would kill them instantly. We look back at those acts and many more like them and have a hard time believing how people get talked into such behaviors. For the most part, I believe people take the position that, if under the same circumstances, they would not have caved in. They would have stuck to their principles and not succumbed to the peer pressure or brainwashing if you will.
It's our moments of pride and overconfidence that I believe we become the most susceptible to unhealthy forms of indoctrination/brainwashing. Unfortunately, investing is one of those areas where we would do well to take a step back and see, "Have I been brainwashed?" Have I been talked into behaviors and believes that on the surface seem ok, but in reality are doing harm to myself?
Brainwashing as a noun is defined as a method of systematically changing attitudes or altering beliefs. It is embodied by any method of controlled systematic indoctrination, especially based on repetition or confusion. Can you think of any industry that produces more information that absolutely no one can begin to comprehend then the investment industry? If I can control your beliefs haven't I gone a long way towards controlling your behaviors, what you will and won't do with your money?
If you do a word search on Google for the word money, 923,000,000 will come up for you to read. It would take about 5,268 years to read all those pages. Every one will have a suggestion as to what to do with your money and tons of statistics telling why their suggestion is the right one. My bet is that after 10 to 20 pages your head will start to spin. This doesn't say anything about the 28,000 mutual funds out there.
Now we come to the repetition. Every last bit of the information you read about what to do with your money promotes one of three strategies. Stock picking, market timing, and track records. Here are the stocks to own or get rid of. Now is the time to get in the market. Now is the time to get out of the market. Now is the time to buy these kinds of stocks or gold. Here is a fund with a brilliant track record over the past five, ten, 20 years and the person you should hire to manage your money. Are there any other kinds of messages that you see on TV, the inter net, the magazines, the cable shows, etc. It is a constant 24, 7, 365 stream of messages coming at investors. Does the word repetition seem appropriate?
Now long before the 1930's with the Nazis and long before the 2010 with ISIS, it was pretty much accepted that murdering innocent people was wrong. So how did so many people get talked into committing such atrocities? They couldn't tell the difference. Some were born into it. Some through coercion came to see their behavior as acceptable. They couldn't see the harm in it. They couldn't feel the harm they were inflicting on others or themselves. This wasn't the result of just one message. It was massive amounts of information going out to people and being manipulated to get people to believe and act as desired.
How does this apply to investing? Most people would never dream of taking their life savings and walking into a casino and start a daily habit of gambling and speculating with it. They know that would be downright foolish. They probably couldn't be convinced no matter how much information they were given to allow somebody else to start playing roulette, blackjack, or shoot craps with their retirement savings.
Back in 1990 the American Law Institute in writing the Prudent Investor Law came to the conclusion that "Bargain shopping in an attempt to separate the winners and losers through forecasting was deemed to be wasteful." By it's very nature stock picking, market timing, and track record investing are forecasting. It is an attempt to predict the future, no different from gambling. Yet in the fog of 28,000 mutual funds and 900,000,000 inter net pages that reality escapes the overwhelming majority of investors. They are led to behaviors that cripple their chances of ever experiencing true peace of mind with their investments.
The results don't lie. Most people, no matter what the casinos would like us to believe, do not walk into the casinos on a consistent basis and become affluent. The odds are not in their favor. In fact, there are mathematical formulas proving that the more you gamble, the more you will lose. That same mathematical evidence applies to stock picking, market timing, and track record, investing. Affluence does not result from those activities. More accurately, poverty results from those activities. From 1984 through 2013 U.S. Large Company Stocks annualized return was 11.10%. The average Stock mutual fund investor's annualized return in that time was 3.69%.Inflation was up an annualized 2.80% over that same time. The tragedy is that investors are doing it to themselves.
I don't believe someone, unless mentally disturbed, would intentionally do harm to themselves. Most people would prefer to grow, thrive, and be at peace. Yet we can't ignore that it is the decisions and behaviors of the investor that is at the root of their problems.
There is only one way to begin to start the healing process and end the cycle of destruction investors are inflicting upon themselves. That is for investors to consider and see for themselves, that are the victim of a systematic effort to brainwash the investing public. The only way to do this is through being asked the right questions.
Do you know the three warning signs that you are engaged in or are allowing someone to gamble and speculate with your money as opposed to prudently investing it? If you can't, brainwashing has seeped into your beliefs, attitudes, decisions, and behaviors. Best not to resist or deny the condition. The damage will only continue unabated. The best course of action would be to accept it and accept that most likely on your own you will not overcome it. On your own, you will be taking on years and years of mental hard wiring. Allow someone qualified to lead you to the cure by helping you to ask the right questions and keep you there.
The great news in all of this is that if your are the source of the damage being done, you are also the source of the cure as well. You are more powerful then you may realize. Access to this power is accepting responsibility for what has been done. Be generous to yourself and don't condemn yourself for being human, and perhaps most importantly, realize where it is that you are powerless. You are up against your own hard wiring, the media, and the investment industry. Maybe you need to realize that to take on the evil empire you need help.
Brendan Magee is the founder and president of Inevitable Wealth Coaching. With questions or comments go to www.coachgee.com or call 610-446-4322
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